The coronavirus pandemic is forcing the financial services industry to undergo a digital transformation. For businesses to adapt and operate as normal, employees need to be able to work remotely.
However, many asset managers were not prepared with the right IT infrastructure and systems in place, putting a strain on their operations, and inhibiting their ability to react to changes in the market.
By implementing development and operations (DevOps) in a robust cloud-based environment, asset managers can mitigate the impact of a global pandemic on their operations and roll out their products faster to market.
Enhanced operations
At its simplest, DevOps combines software development and IT operations to automate and standardize workflows. This involves removing the barriers between historically siloed teams, which allows for greater collaboration and communication, resulting in streamlined services and product development.
Cloud infrastructure further enhances this, enabling collaboration and transparency across workflows and data, while also providing test environments for new solutions without the need for expensive physical hardware.
Agility for stability
Through a more responsive and synergetic environment, businesses can ensure continuous delivery, integration and improvement of their services.
By working together in the cloud, DevOps teams can be more autonomous, taking ownership of their services to release product updates at a faster rate. The increased speed gives businesses more opportunities to improve their products and identify innovative ways of building a competitive advantage, enabling them to continue delivering a positive end-user experience. This optimization of the software delivery process is vital for financial institutions, as it allows them to detect and correct issues rapidly, especially during periods of intense volatility.
Security and scalability
Cybersecurity is often a major concern when businesses opt for DevOps. Many financial institutions fear that the replacement of legacy systems with cloud technology could leave them vulnerable to security risks.
However, the public cloud offers many tools that have proven effective in securing hosted environments that meet or exceed industry standards. Implementing a DevOps strategy in a secure, public cloud environment with full redundancy and disaster recovery can help businesses address these security risks, while offering the flexibility to scale quickly and efficiently. DevOps on a secure cloud-based environment also allows businesses to better manage their compliance practices. With ongoing regulatory reform in the financial industry, it’s crucial for institutions to have this in place, so they can seamlessly adjust workflows and meet new compliance standards, without slowing product rollout. It also allows businesses to continuously build on top of existing products to meet changing regulations.
Critically, DevOps enables firms to focus on growth opportunities by adapting to the ever-evolving market structure. Having a cloud solution and managed services provider onboard makes this possible.
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